Combining Tenses in Spanish

Using Multiple Tenses in a Sentence

We combine tenses unthinkingly in English. “I was cooking when the phone rang.” “When the storm started, I was at home.” “When I get more time, I will travel more often.” “If I were rich, I’d have a big house.”

The problem is that, as native speakers, we never stop to think about the fact that we’re combining different tenses. In fact, we rarely think about tenses in English at all: we simply use them!

When you start saying anything but the simplest of sentences in Spanish, you’re going to need the ability to distinguish tenses in your head. The two main past tenses are the perfect place to start, because many sentences combine the two.

Remember the timeline from the previous chapter? Let’s put it to use. Let’s say that you want to tell someone, “I wasn’t home when you called.” What is the action that occurs over an indefinite period of time in the past? My not being home. What is the event that breaks up the continuous action? Your call. Therefore, “I wasn’t home” would be in the imperfect tense, while “you called” would be in the preterite tense.

Or perhaps you want to say, “I was 18 years old when I graduated from high school.” What is the action that occurs over a period of time? Being 18 years old. What is the event that breaks up the timeline? Graduation. Therefore, “I was 18 years old” would be in the imperfect, while “I graduated” would be in the preterite.

Tenía dieciocho años cuando me gradué de colegio.

This pattern can be summarized as follows:

Or, as I like to say it:

When an imperfect action is going on, a preterite event happens.

 

In the next section we'll talk about the Spanish Past Progressive.